Puppet MastersS


Red Flag

Ukraine far-right leader demands govt open arsenals for radical groups


RT
Fri, 07 Mar 2014 19:27 UTC
Image
© UnknownDmitry Yaroch
The leader of the Ukrainian radical group Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh, has reportedly demanded the country's authorities open military arsenals for the group's fighters.

This is according to an unknown source in Ukraine's military department, as cited by ITAR-TASS.

The source also quoted Yarosh as saying the "conservative approach" of the security agencies' chiefs doesn't allow for order to be restored by precluding anti-Maidan rallies in eastern and southern regions of Ukraine.

In an ultimatum, Yarosh demanded that the government gives to his group the access to a part of weapons and military equipment, as well as several military training centers "for quality training for Right Sector fighters."

"Yarosh doesn't rule out more decisive action on Ukraine, if the government doesn't comply with these demands," the source indicated to ITAR-TASS.

However, Right Sector denounced the report as false.

"It's only an attempt to discredit out organization," the group's press secretary, Artyom Skoropadsky, told Slon web portal.
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Airplane

Iranian lawmaker blames U.S. for plane 'kidnapping'

Thomas Erdbrink
New York Times
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:57 UTC
Image
© BBCPouria Nour Mehrdad and Delavar Mohammadreza, the two Iranian men allegedly travelling using stolen passports on Flight 370
With the fate and location of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet still unexplained on Tuesday, the police were investigating the possibilities of hijacking, sabotage and possible psychological or personal problems among the crew and passengers, while other agencies in Malaysia continued to investigate noncriminal explanations, as Thomas Fuller, Jane Perlez and Alan Cowell reported.

On Tuesday, an influential Iranian lawmaker accused the United States of having "kidnapped" Flight 370, saying it was an attempt to "sabotage the relationship between Iran and China and South East Asia."
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Chess

Edward Snowden: 'I would do it again'

Jon Swaine and Jemima Kiss
The Guardian
Mon, 10 Mar 2014 17:05 UTC
Edward Snowden talks NSA and internet surveillance at SXSW


Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower whose unprecedented leak of top-secret documents led to a worldwide debate about the nature of surveillance, insisted on Monday that his actions had improved the national security of the United States rather than undermined it, and declared that he would do it all again despite the personal sacrifices he had endured.

In remarks to the SXSW culture and technology conference in Texas, delivered by video link from his exile in Russia, Snowden took issue with claims by senior officials that he had placed the US in danger. He also rejected as demonstrably false the suggestions by some members of Congress that his files had found their way into the hands of the intelligence agencies of China or Russia.

Snowden spoke against the backdrop of an image of the US constitution, which he said he had taken an oath to protect but had seen "violated on a mass scale" while working for the US government. He accepted praise from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, accorded the first question via Twitter, who described him as "acting profoundly in the public interest".
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Bad Guys

Give and take in the EU-US trade deal? Sure. We give, the corporations take

George Monbiot
The Guardian
Mon, 10 Mar 2014 16:39 UTC
EU US illustration
© Daniel Pudles
I have three challenges for the architects of a proposed transatlantic trade deal. If they reject them, they reject democracy

Nothing threatens democracy as much as corporate power. Nowhere do corporations operate with greater freedom than between nations, for here there is no competition. With the exception of the European parliament, there is no transnational democracy, anywhere. All other supranational bodies - the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations, trade organisations and the rest - work on the principle of photocopy democracy (presumed consent is transferred, copy by copy, to ever-greyer and more remote institutions) or no democracy at all.

When everything has been globalised except our consent, corporations fill the void. In a system that governments have shown no interest in reforming, global power is often scarcely distinguishable from corporate power. It is exercised through backroom deals between bureaucrats and lobbyists.
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Calendar

Ukraine crisis: Russia drafting counter-offer to nonsensical U.S. demands


The Guardian
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 05:45 UTC
Image
© Zurab Kurtsikedze/EPARussian ships in the bay of Sevastopol, Crimea.
Kremlin says Washington's stance on negotiations unacceptable because it accepts ouster of Yanukovych as fait accompli

Russia has said it is drafting counterproposals to a US plan for a negotiated solution to the Ukraine crisis. The Kremlin denounced the new western-backed government as an unacceptable "fait accompli" and claimed Russian-leaning parts of the country had been plunged into lawlessness.

The Kremlin moves came as Russian forces strengthened their control over Crimea, less than a week before the strategic region is to hold a contentious referendum on whether to split off and become part of Russia.

In a televised briefing with President Vladimir Putin, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said proposals made by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, were "not suitable" because they took the situation created by the coup as a starting point, referring to the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Kremlin president, Viktor Yanukovych.

Referring to a document he received from Kerry explaining the US view of the situation in Ukraine, Lavrov said: "To be frank it raises many questions on our side ... Everything was stated in terms of allegedly having a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and in terms of accepting the fait accompli."
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Vader

The rule under fascism: National Council of Ukraine to shut off five Russian TV channels by Tuesday evening


Voice of Russia
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:35 UTC
Remote control
© SXC.hu
The National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine requires the Ukrainian providers to stop broadcasting Russian TV channels Vesti, Russia 24, Channel One, RTR 'Planeta', and NTV Mir, the National Council websites reports Tuesday. As of 12.00 (15.00 MSK) March 11, some 50 % of the Ukrainian providers throughout have shut off the broadcast of the above-mentioned channels, others are prepared to follow.

The National Council justifies this change of the situation in the information field of Ukraine on the basis of the need for information security in accordance with the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine from March 1, 2014 "On urgent measures to ensure national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine" and the NSDC's appeal to the National Council.

"The National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine requires the program service providers to stop the broadcast of the Russian TV channels Vesti, Russia 24, Channel One (worldwide transmission), RTR 'Planeta', and NTV-World in their network by 19.00 (21.00 MSK) on March 11 this year," the National Council statement says.

Moscow has repeatedly pointed out that the introduction of a ban on the broadcast of the Russian channels in Ukraine would be a serious violation of freedom of speech.

Comment: Freedom of speech is a defining factor of fascism. So along with banning the Russian language and the communist party, now Russian TV channels are banned too.

Willy Wimmer, veteran German politician highlights the danger of fascism in this interview:
Veteran German politician says the US has abandoned international law, abides by 'law of the jungle' in Ukraine

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Magnify

Veteran German politician says the US has abandoned international law, abides by 'law of the jungle' in Ukraine


RT
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:16 UTC
Supporters of the Crimean parliament
© RIA Novosti/Valeriy MelnikovParticipants hold different-colored pieces of paper to display the Russian flag at the rally in support of the Crimean Parliament and Sevastopol City Council's decision to reunite with Russia, staged on Nakhimov Square in Sevastopol.
Western powers are following an agenda to partition the map of the European region under which a portion of the Black Sea territory will be under US domination, former vice president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Willy Wimmer, told RT.

The veteran German politician, who served as a Defense Ministry state secretary, reminded that no Western government is talking about the extreme right element of the government in Kiev.

RT: More than a decade ago, you told your country's leadership of a disturbing connection between NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia and plans for the alliance's expansion. We have some extracts from the letter you wrote to then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder after a conference organized by the US State Department. You raised concerns over some of the conclusions reached, such as: "It would be good, during NATO's current enlargement, to restore the territorial situation in the area between the Baltic Sea and Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) such as existed during the Roman Empire..." Do you think these plans still exist? And, if so, could the Ukrainian crisis be playing a role?

Willy Wimmer: I think what I thought of Gerhard Schröder is similar to Angela Merkel in May 2000 - is exactly what is going on in these days. During the conference in Bratislava which was high ranking with state presidents, prime ministers, defense, and foreign ministers, and organized by the top leadership of the US State Department, they made a proposal to draw a line between Riga on the Baltic Sea, Odessa on the Black Sea, and Diyarbakir. All the territories west of this line should be under US domination, and the territories east of this line - they might be the Russian Federation or somebody else. That was the proposal - and when we see developments since then, I think it's like a schedule which had been presented to the conference participants; everything happens exactly as it was on the timetable in Bratislava.
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Passport

Double standards: Shin Bet, Mossad bar employees from signing up for biometric database

Ilan Lior
Haaretz
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 11:52 UTC
Image
© Tomer AppelbaumA demonstration of the biometric database's workings at the system's unveiling ceremony. Rishon Letzion, June 8, 2013.
Security agencies have opposed the project from the start, fearing data leaks.

The Shin Bet security service and the Mossad espionage agency have banned their employees from replacing their Israeli ID cards and passports with new "smart" documents, which requires joining the pilot trial of the state's new biometric database. Officers in sensitive units of the Israel Defense Forces have also been instructed not to join.

The instructions were issued shortly after the pilot began last year, Haaretz has learned, but not made public until now.

The security agencies fear potential damage to their operations in the event of leaks of classified information from the pilot database.

The database, which among other things is meant to prevent any individual from using more than one identity, could even restrict the activities of agents. The Mossad has opposed the establishment of the database since it was first proposed, in 2010, and the Shin Bet did not support it either.
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Light Sabers

Encouraging: Crimean parliament guarantees broader rights to Tatar minority


RT
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:46 UTC
Crimean Tatars
© Reuters / Thomas PeterCrimean Tatars talk after praying in the Khan Chair mosque in Bakhchisaray, near Simferopol
A resolution passed by the Crimean parliament guarantees proportional representation in the republic's legislative and executive bodies for the Crimean Tatar ethnic minority and grants their language official status, among other things.

The resolution provides for constitutional reform that would amend several key provisions of Crimea's basic law. Under the amended constitution, the Crimean Tatar language would be granted official status, on a par with Russian and Ukrainian in Crimea.

It stipulates proportional representation in future parliaments and provides for at least 20 percent of seats in the republic's executive for Crimean Tatars. They would have guaranteed representation in the lower levels of government as well.

The parliament also wants to recognize as official the self-governance bodies of the Crimean Tatars, starting with the Kurultai, a general assembly of the Tatars.

Crimean MPs pledged to fund programs for support of the Tatar community in Crimea and repatriation of Crimean Tatars, who were deported from the peninsula by Joseph Stalin's Soviet government in the 1940s.
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Megaphone

Yanukovich: I'm alive, I'm still president, and I'll be back


RT
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:46 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo/ Alexander NemenovOusted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich attends his press-conference in southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, on March 11, 2014.
Ukrainian officers and soldiers loyal to their oaths will not take criminal orders from the coup-imposed government in Kiev, ousted President Viktor Yanukovich told reporters.

He added that as a legitimate head of state he also remains commander-in-chief of Ukraine.

"I am still alive and I am still the legitimate president," Yanukovich said Tuesday in a statement to the media in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

He accused the coup-imposed government of "shooting your own people" in an apparent reference to the allegations that somebody in the current government hired snipers to shoot at both protesters and police officers during the February confrontation and escalate the violence. The new authorities in Kiev "will sooner or later be held accountable for the suffering of the people," Yanukovich said.

Yanukovich blasted western officials who had recognized the government in Kiev, despite the way it came into power and its connection to right-wing radicals.

"Are you blind? Have you forgotten what fascism is?" he said.
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